


everything is warmer in California

by inkoustem, neyvenger (jjjat3am)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: LA Galaxy - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:12:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7478289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkoustem/pseuds/inkoustem, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/neyvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robbie's nervous about the new addition to the locker room, but it turns out he shouldn't have been.</p><p>or</p><p>Stevie finds somewhere to belong again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything is warmer in California

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a conversation about three pictures ([x](https://67.media.tumblr.com/e4b68f926912a173e5e03a6bc2d2f7d3/tumblr_o9r4mzLLWk1qk4ebno2_540.png), [x](https://66.media.tumblr.com/973f1a8668f3b90e13ada3a2ca01f75b/tumblr_o9r4mzLLWk1qk4ebno3_500.png), [x](https://67.media.tumblr.com/fb928d64ec224a7e9385428b74b7451e/tumblr_o9r4mzLLWk1qk4ebno4_500.png)), of Robbie and Stevie together at a party in West Hollywood. Which Tash tagged as 'he's wearing Robbie's clothing line and they look married' and to which I replied 'why don't I just set myself on fire'. The resulting conversation is basically this fic.
> 
> If any of you don't know who our smol son Robbie Rogers is, he's the bravest, most beautiful angel. He's also the second football player to come out, and the only one currently actively playing. He's Stevie's teammate in LA.
> 
> If you got here by googling yourself or someone you love, please, for the love of god, click backspace.

 

 

 

Coming out publicly is the hardest thing Robbie’s had to do. Leaving home, playing through pain, all those months of injuries, all those rejections, it was nothing against sitting down in front of a reporter, somehow smiling through question after question, even though he felt like throwing up.

 

Maybe it’s the coward's way out, to leave right after, to not deal with any of the fallout from the locker room, from the chants from the stands now having a direct target, but he doesn’t feel strong enough to carry that all on his back. Doesn’t feel like he should have an obligation to.

 

But then, things go better than expected.

 

Galaxy offers him a contract and his new teammates assure him they won't have any problems with him. He’s tense the first few times he changes with the rest of them, taking a lot of care to look at the floor and the floor only, but no one regards him with suspicion, or anger.

 

Eventually the guys start bantering him about his love life, offering to set him up with second cousins and childhood friends. He never goes. The guys have atrocious taste in men. Almost as bad as their taste in clothes, but he’s trying not to be a stereotype. He’ll help them out with some advice if they ask though; he’s got a clothing line to sell, after all.

 

Then the announcement comes; they’re signing Steven Gerrard, living football legend and everyone is buzzing.

 

And it’s not like Robbie isn’t as excited, he is, he’s looked up to Stevie G for ages, but, well. Have you ever heard of the expression ‘don’t meet your heroes’? And even beyond that, it’s always unsettling to to bring someone new into the locker room, especially for him.

 

He really wants Stevie to like him.

 

He needn’t have worried, it turns out. Stevie doesn’t treat him any differently from anyone else. Robbie sometimes wonders if he even knows. He never joins in on the banter.

 

Stevie does look tired though. And sad, a lot of the time. So Robbie does his best to make him laugh, reaches out more than he usually would with someone new, recommends him sights and restaurants. Tries to make him feel welcome.

  
  


*

  
  


When he comes to Los Angeles, signing for LA Galaxy, Stevie doesn't really know what he expects and wants. He had expected and wanted once before, it didn’t really go well. So since then, Stevie threads things ever so carefully.

 

Times are changing now, he knows, but Stevie’s been in this long enough that reservedness is second nature to him—playing things safe as there is no time to be sorry.

 

It’s been years since he’s had to walk into an unfamiliar locker room and introduce himself. The last time was with the England squad at 19, and even then he had Redders and Growler and Macca paving the way, and he still locked himself into his room and almost didn’t go to dinner.

 

Here, there aren’t as many failsafes. Sure, Keano is there, but this isn’t his home either, not really. Not enough rain and too much sunshine, always blinding his eyes, burning, turning everything into burnished flashes of white.

 

And then, there’s Robbie—young, hopeful, radiant Robbie—smiling at him across the locker room, offering his hand to shake, doing everything in his power to make him feel included.

 

Blame it on the literal heat of the moment, but here, nothing less a stranger in a strange land, Stevie lets himself look for once. Finds himself catching on ‘what if’ and, increasingly, ‘maybe’.

 

(It’s not easy though, because every time Robbie turns around the number 14 stands out starkly against the green.) (The Californian sun can be harsh not just on his eyes but also on his heart - when he squints he sees things, wishful things, things that can’t be there)

 

And there's just something about Robbie that makes him feel—well, makes him  _ feel _ again. And it feels nice. Robbie is nice. and Stevie thinks it's been 20 odd years and he's all the way across the sea now. He can try. He can at least try.

 

Everything is just warmer in California.

 

*

 

And then one day, Stevie says "Hey. that sounds good. Why don't you join me?" and Robbie hesitates for a moment, because it’s not something he’d expect in a million years, going for Mexican food with Steven Gerrard, but apparently this is his life now.

Stevie looks nervous, rubbing the back of his head, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening, and Robbie must be taking too long to respond, because he starts babbling.

 

“Unless, um, you already have plans? With your boyfriend?”

 

And Liverpool legend, Ballon d'Or finalist Steven Gerrard is standing on front of him, blushing and fidgeting, and...is this a date?

 

No, of course not, Robbie is being silly.

 

"Ha, no, no boyfriend," he says, because it’s the sad truth, and "I'd love to." 

 

And so they go to lunch.

 

And then they go to dinner the next day.

 

And then lunch again. And ice cream and a walk on the beach.

 

And Robbie is certainly no expert, but these feel a lot like dates, though he’s trying (failing) to not think too deeply about that.

 

He’s had his fair share of crushes on straight friends, but none of them have been like this; sharp, supportive and brilliant on the field, and warm in private, laughing at Robbie’s jokes, listening to what he has to say. None of them have helped him put a jacket on after a delicious dinner, brushing his lapels so they stand flat, casually, like the touch doesn’t make something warm pool in the base of Robbie’s stomach.

  
  


*

  
  


The first time someone banters Robbie about his love life, Stevie tenses up, feeling abruptly freezing. It's just fun and Robbie chirps right back and they all laugh about it, but his shoulders don't unwind till halfway to his apartment.

 

The thing is, LA and Robbie just make it look so easy.

 

So easy to be out and to be brave. Because here, just his best seems to be good enough. They win some and lose some and it's hardly the end of someone's world.

 

But lunch with Robbie, learning to surf with Robbie, ice cream with Robbie, that feels like another world entirely. One he's increasingly sure might have a space for him.

 

Uncertainty turns into excitement and Stevie lets himself be fed from it all. Yet, there's still a voice at the back of his mind- raw and worrying.

 

It’s not about believing in karma, but he remembers all his share of wake up calls- the missed chances, the heartbreaks, how he slipped and with the weight bigger than himself he fell. The phrase goes ‘all good things must come to an end,’ and the reality is, Stevie is not a stranger to that.

 

This is why, when Keano gives him a look across the locker room, his heart involuntarily drops a bit.

 

Bracing for the worst, Stevie holds his breath again. But, unexpectedly, the words that come out of Keano's shitty grin are: "Didn't peg you the type to handle midlife crisis by having a young beau, Ste. You know the standard is a sports car or two, right?"   
  


Stevie doesn't know how to react for a second.

 

But as it sinks in for Stevie, Keano's smile turns soft and genuine, no hint of teasing. Stevie breathes again and says, "Fuck off, he's not even that much younger," and they’re just beaming at each other in the middle of the locker room in fucking LA, of all places. 

 

Who would have thought, all those years and they’d end up here. 

 

"Anyways. Bit hypocritical of you to say that, don't you think?" Stevie says, nodding to where Gio is sitting, putting on his Minion socks and bopping along to the beat of a Spanish song someone put on the locker room radio. Keano, honest to god, blushes.

 

They’re a pair, a Scouser and an Irishman, feeling their way in the Californian sunshine.

  
  


*

  
  


One day, Robbie accidentally reads some awful comments on the internet, has a generally shitty day and is honestly on the verge of either punching someone or crying by the end of it.

 

He almost says no to dinner. But Stevie shows up at his door with takeout and a worried expression, and he can’t say no to that. Stevie starts an anecdote about what he calls ‘the olden days’, which never fails to make Robbie laugh, and it immediately makes him feel steadier.

 

Still, he’s feeling unexpectedly tender, and inexplicably grateful enough to get a bit sentimental.

 

"Hey Stevie? Thanks for being so good about this,” he says, and Stevie looks up from where he’s sitting on Robbie’s couch, struggling with his takeout container.

 

"What?" he asks, dropping his chopsticks for the third time that evening. One of them rolls under the couch. Robbie hands him a fork automatically. Their fingers brush.

 

"Me being gay. Just thanks." It's such a stupid thing to get so emotional about. but it's all catching up to him and Stevie is looking at him so kindly and he just. It's overwhelming all of a sudden.

 

"You don't need to thank me for that. I like you a lot, if you haven't noticed,” he says, and that makes Robbie smile, especially once he follows it up with.  "And...um...it'd be a bit hypocritical of me?"

 

So, apparently Steven Gerrard is bisexual. 

 

Robbie’s mouth is suddenly bone dry where he’s trying to swallow around his noodles, his heart racing in his chest. He watches Stevie on his couch, struggling with a piece of fried chicken in sauce, and for the first time, instead of ‘maybe’, he catches himself thinking about ‘when’.

  
  


*

  
  


Despite what he probably thinks, Robbie is transparent. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and Stevie remembers the horde of whistles and slurs from back home and thinks "How?"

 

Xabi left and Alex left, and now Stevie left and he finds he can't fault them for it anymore.

 

Liverpool was glory and passion and home, and increasingly it was a weight on his shoulders. Liverpool made it hard to breathe.

 

In Liverpool, the path is clear, as well as the risks and rewards that come with it. And it's not like he doesn't want to walk, but he knows he's not walking just for himself, and every step feels draining, one foot in front of the other, so he doesn’t slip again.

 

In LA, there is no clear path. Not immediately anyway. It's all unfamiliar and unanchored and it terrifies him a bit. That's when Robbie comes and offers him his hand. So he takes a deep breath and takes it. He's not walking alone, he never will be, he’s heard that so many times now, from a thousand voices, enough to make it an unshakable truth. 

 

But now he’s walking for himself too.

  
  


*

  
  


Stevie opens the door wearing a sheepish smile and one of the suits off Robbie’s clothing line, and Robbie almost drops to his knees right there.

 

As it is, he lets up a rather unflattering squeak and lets Stevie pull him inside.

 

“Do you like it?” Stevie asks, almost shyly. Robbie allows himself a moment to take him in, from the smooth material of his shirt, paired perfectly with his suit, to his smile, wide and sheepish. 

 

“I love it,” he breathes, then, as to not give away too much. “Of course I do, I modelled it,” but he can’t stop himself from stepping into Stevie’s space, reaching out to flatten his lapels, his fingers lingering on the butter soft material.

 

“I’ve been thinking,” Stevie says, and Robbie looks up to an expression he’s never seen on his face before. “Tomorrow we should go to James Republic for dinner.”

 

“Don’t we always go to James Republic for dinner?” Robbie asks dumbly, freezing when Stevie reaches up to cover his hands with his own. 

 

“We do,” Stevie says, almost gently, almost shyly. “But, I thought maybe this time it could be a date.”

 

“Oh,” Robbie says. His mind is trying to catch up to the proceedings, but it’s preoccupied, with the curve of Stevie’s smile, the pink flash of his tongue. “I’d like that.”

 

“Yeah?” Stevie says, low and kind of breathy, but it’s as far as Robbie will let him go, tipping forward to press a kiss against the side of his mouth.

  
  


*

  
  


Leaving Liverpool was maybe the hardest thing Stevie’s had to do. 

 

Sometimes it still feels off, white layered over his muscles instead of red, another crest instead of the Liverbird soaring. The absence of the armband like a phantom limb.

 

But.

 

California is the sun, shining high in the sky, glittering along the sidewalks. It’s the clear blue of the sky reflected in Robbie’s eyes as their hands brush shyly between them when they walk. 

 

It makes it easy to take a breath, easy for his heart to settle, like a bird pulling from a nosedive only to land in its nest. 

 

California has Robbie, and Stevie is willing to admit that he really really likes him.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> \- Robbie came out in 2013, after a season with Leeds United that was rife with injury. He then announced his retirement right after. But, months later, LA Galaxy did offer him a deal and he accepted and now plays for them.  
> \- he does own a clothing line, though we don't know if Stevie's actually wearing it in the picture  
> \- Robbie wears the number 14 at LA Galaxy. Who else wore that number and was important in Stevie's life? Xabi Alonso  
> \- James Republic is a real restaurant on Long Beach.  
> \- Keano is Robbie Keane, and Gio is Gio dos Santos. He really loves minions a lot.  
> \- [Tash's tumblr](http://darquematter.tumblr.com/) and [Julija's tumblr](https://neyvenger.tumblr.com/)


End file.
